Marseille and Music go hand in hand…
By: Magnusson |
2 Comments
France is Hip-Hop’s second market after the US in terms of album sales. And the very active Marseillais scene is second only to Paris’ but has been wildly succesful ever since its early beginnings. The artists in that city often have their own universes, crews and sounds. The pioneers of course being IAM, followed by the Fonky Famuily and more recently artists such as Psy 4 De La Rhyme anf their leader Soprano who is at the top of the charts in the country right now. If the artist of the phoceen city are often in their own personal universes, they’re often gathered by their love of marseille and they have been showing for the longest time.
First of all, IAM, the pioneers of Marseille Rap took the most famous anthemn from the stands, called “Ce soir, on vous met le feu” (litteraly “Tonight, we’ll burn you up”) and made it a hit song. The song never left the Vélodrome and is still to this day a fans favorite.
Category: essays
Tags: Munich gets the Marseille treatment…
By: Magnusson | 3 Comments
A few months back, Marseille was eliminated by the Zenit St.Petersburg and everybody, me included, thought we should have won despite the russians’ domination. Marseille was ridiculed for failing once again at this stage of the competition against an Eastern European team. We looked like world class choke-artists. But today I have to take back all the negative things I have said. Zenit St.Petersburg is now the favorite to win this year’s UEFA Cup. They just humiliated Bayern Munich in Saint Petersburg by winning 4-0 after a 1-1 draw in the first leg. After having watched the extensive highlights, I feel much better about our own shortcomings. Munich went there thinking they would win it easy, and they didn’t, same as we did. Sorry for underestimating the russian side, who are quickly becoming a fan’s favorite after beating us, Villareal, Leverkusen and now Munich. They will be facing the scottish Rangers in the first European fianl of their history.
Good luck to them then…
Category: UEFA CupMonaco 2-3 Marseille, We take the third spot…
By: Magnusson | 2 Comments
In what was supposed to be the game where we could actually believe this was a great season, marseille didn’t disappoint. We went at Monaco and played as if it were a home-game (this is usuamlly the case, as Monaco has no public, no offense). After a first half that was nothing more than a snoozefest save for a few highlights and Samir Nasri’s beautiful goal, the second half was easily one of the better ones we’ve seen thus far. The Monégasques showed pride and fought hrd for theirs. But ultimately, Marseille wante it more and took that game. Although it can bve said that Akalé fouled Monsoreau on the third goal while Niang passed the ball to Djibril Cissé who scored a very Un-Cissé-like goal, i.e. a very smart one. I liked that Marseille led three times but only let them come back twice. The game was nerve-racking and had we lost, we could have kissed the Champions League Goodby. Today, we’re in the passsenger’s seat and can hope to keep this spot.
It certainly won’t be easy as we will welcome Bordeaux at the Vélodrome this weekend. NOt that I want Lyon to become Champions right away, but by us winning, we make sure, Alain Perrin’s boys are a shoe-in. I don’t care, I’d rather see us third and in the Champions League than Bordeauxas champions.
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Category: French Ligue 1Marseille 1-3 Lille, Not much to say
By: Magnusson | Add Comments
It’s a rare occasion when Marseille loses a match and I have nothing bad to say about our team. I mean let’s just look at our season so far. If you really look at it, you understand it’s a miracle that we’re here. It’s especially true when you realize that we were BEHIND Paris SG after the 11th round. Sometimes every year, there are games when you lose because of the accumulation of matches.
First of all, he weather was bad, with raining and winds so fast it looked like we were playing at Lille. Let’s get serious, it was raining for everybody and this is not an excuse. So let’s not take this as one. But I’m pretty much convinced that if it was not this humid, Steve Mandanda wouldn’t have done the mistake he did, his first one of the season.
On another note, marseille scored first with Mamadou Niang at the 13th minute. The senegalese striker scored his 16th goal in the Ligue 1 this season, putting him one goal behind Karim Benzema. Then Samir Nasri missed what could have been the second goal four minutes later on a Laurent Bonnart cross.
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Category: French Ligue 1Mamadou Niang hurt during practice…
By: Magnusson | 2 Comments
Already aware that we would be missing captain Lorik Cana, suspended for an accumulation of yellow cards, Marseille just lost this afternoon Mamadou Niang after he sustained a injury during a practice at the Commanderie. After an immediate echography, it was revealed that the senegalese striker had a very serious bruise on his right thigh. The medical staff immediatly afer confirmed that he certainly wouldn’t be playing against Lille this weekend.
This is a serious blow to us in our race to sustain the third place our victory against Metz helped obtain. The only good news is of vourse that he could be playing next week.
On another note, Mathieu Valbuena will be playing sunday as well.
Category: UncategorizedDjibril Cisse is well paid
By: Magnusson | 1 Comment
France Football published today a list of the best paid players in France and once again, Djibril Cissé is the first name on that list with 4.8 million euros, before Pedro Miguel Pauleta (4.6 million) and Lyon’s two brazilians Juninho and Cris (with 4.5 and 4.2 million respectively).
Mostly the list shows that strikers are better paid than their other colleagues. Lyon has 13 players in the first 20 players of that list and is dominating the Ligue 1 by far. The only other marseillais on the list is surprisingly, Gaël Givet.
As for the world, David Beckham is still number ONE with 31 million euros before Ronaldinho and messi (24.1 and 23 million for the blaugranas). The first french player is still Thierry Henry with 16.8 million.
What about the Africans? Well they’re grossly underpaid with 10.4 million only for Didier Drogba while most of his teammates are better paid than he is (I’m talking Lampard, Chevchenko, Ballack, John Terry). Same goes for Samuel Eto’o who only gets 9.4 mil a year. Diarra and Essien are not in the 20 most paid players in the world. Apparently some players are better on the pitch than off it, or maybe their agents are not doing their jobs right. Case in Point, how come Mamadou Niang is not in the French Top 20?
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Category: French Ligue 1Marseille 3-1 Lyon, 2 out of 2…
By: Magnusson | 3 Comments
It’s not every season that one can boast to have taken six points from the best team in French Football. And this year, we can. Marseille won at Gerland and at the Vélodrome. Mamadou Niang scored twice each time. The only thing we can do is celebrate today. And of course imagine what would have happened if we didn’t start our championnat in September. Look at it this way, we had nine points in eleven games when Albert Emon got fired. Enough with that though.
Of course Lyon was without Benzema and Cris from the get-go. They lost Toulalan and Fred during the game but I don’t believe one second that Fred would have had the kind of match Hatem Ben Arfa had. If there were two players who have a 50/50 chance of being in the 23 or left off the list for this summer’s Euros, those players are Djibril Cissé and Hatem. Both of them had stellar performances.
I will try to elaborate more once I have time to watch this match again. All I can tell you is that Mamadou Niang is PHENOMENAL. He scored his 14th and 15th goals in 23 appearances in the championnat. He seems to be even more impressing than Karim Benzema these days.
And hopefully Inara will give us some good news on Toulalan soon.
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Category: French Ligue 1Greg Coupet apologizes…kinda
By: Magnusson | 4 Comments
I didn’t have time to talk about it but last week, after Lyon’s win over Valenciennes, Gregory Coupet told the press that “it’s more difficult to win at Valenciennes than at the Vélodrome”. Seen as how it’s been ten years since the last win of Marseille over Lyon at the Vélodrome, you can expect the France National Team keeper to be a little cocky since he never lost at the Vélodrome. Eric Gerets answered him yesterday at the press conference by thanking him and saying that the press clipping of his declaration had been splashed over the locker-room, to help “motivate” Marseillais players. Not that they ever really needed motivation to play Lyon. Now, Greg is backing down, saying that the journalist understood wrong what he meant.
“I said that it would be a match easier to get ready for, Just for the fact that the stadium can hold 60.000 people, there is a real atmosphere and it is a high-profile match. Let me say that I have great respect for Marseille and I would never allow myself to say that it is easy to win at Marseille. It is always a pleasure to make the trip to Marseille. I have never done this kind of thing, I am 35 years old and it’s not at this age that I am going to start doing these things. Currently, Stadium stands are ablaze all around the country and I wish to say that I am not here to stir anything.”
Gregory Coupet has not been known for his lack of diplomacy so I can say that his declarations of wednesday were all in good faith and that he really doesn’t want to turn this match into something that it’s not supposed to be.
Category: French Ligue 1Who the hell is George Steinbrenner?
By: Magnusson | 6 Comments
It’s not news to say that Robert Louis-Dreyfus wanted to sell the club and has been wanting to do so for awhile now. After the first fiasco with the Canadian Jack Kachkar (that people were already dreaming of calling Kashcow), it has been a very long time and since then marseille went to the Champions League and could go once again this year. Which is why I’m very surprised to hear that this George Steinbrenner guy, who is supposedly the owner of the New-York Yankees (no kidding?) has made a move to acquire Marseille and that Sponge-Bob agreed to sell him the club for the relatively low sum of 80 million Euros.
I’m gonna tell you the truth but I was secretly wishing that the relatively good results would ensure that the current team would stay in office. Now I have nothing against americans and stuff but my first reaction to this was that the Premiership seemed a lot more likely to interest them. I’m just looking at the mess over in Paris to see that having American owners is not necessarilly a great thing.
In a press release, Hank Steinbrenner, the new owner (I guess we’re gnna have to call him that from now on huh?) said:
“We’ve been wanting to associate our names and our tradition of sports success in Baseball with the Beautiful Game. And rarely do you get an opprtunity like this one to be part of such a past and, hopefully, an even greater future.”
Valbuena and four others called up…
By: Magnusson | 3 Comments
After the humiliations of the past week, a few Marseillais received some good news this afternoon. Steve Mandanda, Gaël Givet, Samir Nasri, Mathieu Valbuena and Djibril Cissé have been called up in the French National team to play for either the A Team against England or the A’ Team against Mali. We’ll see which players are affected to which squad but it would seem normal that all of them (Samir Nasri excluded) would be called up for the Mali confrontation.
It is a great achievement for Valbuena and Mandanda who were both relative unknows at the beginning of the season (even though Mandanda seems to be the natural heir of Greg Coupet once the Euro is done). Gaël Givet is being rewarded for coming back to his best level after six tough months. So is Djibril Cissé who has a spot in Raymond Domenech’s heart, we know that. As for Samir Nasri, despite being a little less popular these days because of his erratic behavior lately, It’s always nice to see that Raymond wants to give him the keys at some point.
Mathieu Valbuena will complete the list of five newbies that are called up for the first time, Matthieu Delpierre, Mathieu Bodmer (I never made it a secret that this guy was one of my favorite players of the Ligue 1. He’s definitly my favorite Lyonnais, just because I still believe he could play for us. I stopped dreaming of Benzema last year), Adil Rami (he plays for Lille, Julien knows him) and Florent Sinama-Pongolle (waw, this is a surprise. This guy palys for Recreativo Huelva and we pick him while OPeter Luccin is one of the best midfielders in Spain and still ain’t called). Valbuena’s best friend Rio Mavuba’s move to Lille was obviously a good choice for the man who said himself that his move was a mistake. They’ve known each other since they were 9 years old and hopefully for the both of them, they’ll play in the french National team together next week. Either one of them.
All in all, Uncle Ray ray called 39 players:
Keepers: Grégory Coupet (Lyon), Mickaël Landreau (Paris SG), Sébastien Frey (Fiorentina/ITA), Steve Mandanda (Olympique de Marseille)
Defenders: Eric Abidal (FC Barcelona/SPA), Jean-Alain Boumsong (Lyon), Gaël Clichy (Arsenal/ENG), François Clerc (Lyon), Matthieu Delpierre (Stuttgart/GER), Julien Escudé (FC Séville/SPA), Patrice Evra (Manchester United/ENG), Willam Gallas (Arsenal/ENG), Gaël Givet (Marseille), Philippe Mexès (AS Rome/ITA), Adil Rami (Lille), Bakary Sagna (Arsenal/ANG), Sébastien Squillaci (Lyon), Lilian Thuram (FC Barcelone/ESP)
Midfielders: Mathieu Bodmer (Lyon), Alou Diarra (Bordeaux), Lassana Diarra (Portsmouth/ANG), Mathieu Flamini (Arsenal/ANG), Claude Makelele (Chelsea/ANG), Rio Mavuba (Lille), Samir Nasri (Marseille), Jérémy Toulalan (Lyon), Jérôme Rothen (Paris SG), Patrick Vieira (Inter Milan/ITA)
Strikers: Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea/ENG), Hatem Ben Arfa (Lyon), Karim Benzema (Lyon), Jimmy Briand (Rennes), Djibril Cissé (Marseille), Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona/SPA), Florent Malouda (Chelsea/ENG), Sidney Govou (Lyon), Franck Ribéry (Bayern Munich/GER), Florent Sinama-Pongolle (Recreativo Huelva/SPA), Mathieu Valbuena (Marseille)
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